


laisse tomber les filles

by roseisreturning



Series: chick habit [5]
Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Roaring 20s, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-17
Updated: 2014-11-17
Packaged: 2018-02-25 16:44:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2628962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roseisreturning/pseuds/roseisreturning
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Roaring 20's AU written almost exclusively to suck the rest of the world into the void that is thinking about Delphine in elaborate dresses and red lipstick. "You don't think you've been there for ten minutes before Delphine asks whether your place is all right."</p>
            </blockquote>





	laisse tomber les filles

**Author's Note:**

  * For [reincarnationofalovebird](https://archiveofourown.org/users/reincarnationofalovebird/gifts).



She’d come here, she told you, her eyes somewhere between focus and distraction, for research.

You’d hummed something in response, then asked: “A novel?”

"No, no. More science."

"Mm. Me too."

"Yes?"

"Mhm."

"What do you do?"

"Mm, biology…. evolution… Darwinism…"

She nods.

Conversation suits neither of you. Delphine pours you each more wine.

"You’re French," you say.

"Yes."

"Je… Je l’ai fait savoir le français."

"Vraiment?"

"Ouais."

"Et maintenant?"

"Non, non," you say, wondering how grating your accent is to her. "Je pensais que ce n’était pas important."

"Mm."

"Can you tell?"

Delphine shrugs. “Ouais.”

"Why did you leave France?"

"Too many Americans."

"Mm, so America… would have less?"

"It was not a perfect plan."

"Mhm…"

"And you?"

"Mm?"

"You’re not from New York."

"No… California. Too much of it, I don’t know."

"Mhm. Are you… Is this normal for you?"

"Mm? Oh, mm… I don’t know. Yes? Not for you, then?"

"No."

"Should I worry?"

"No. I just didn’t want to…? Sorry, English isn’t…"

"Mmm… I’m heading out, okay?"

She nods.

"You can join me."

"Where’s out?"

"In. Next floor."

Delphine looks almost hesitant. She follows you anyway.

She takes off her shoes the seconds she enters your apartment, sitting them (and herself) on your couch with a carelessness somehow different from yours. More graceful, you think, than the way your fingers move lazily, clumsily through hers, the way they trip over themselves on the hem of her skirt, then interrupt themselves as you start to say something.

You don’t.

She isn’t looking at you.

“Delphine?”

“Mm?”

“What was it like in Paris?”

“I lived with my family. I was going to leave soon. I was engaged? So, it was… inevitable.”

“What happened?” you ask, then realize the question might not be the best. “You don’t have to tell me!”

“Mm, no…” She leans into you, almost whispering. “I think married life was not for me.”

“Mmm. Not for me either. Haven’t been caught in it, but…I told them I came here to, mm, learn about myself?” You laugh, just barely, and Delphine meets your eyes again. “I think they expect I’ll find someone. I write them saying so, too. ‘I’ve met the most handsome man. He doesn’t seem to mind my job as you thought one would!’”

“Have you?”

“No. Still just the girls. It was getting around back home. They hoped I’d kick the habit.”

“You should listen to them.”

“Really?”

“Mhm. They trust you.”

“Here I thought we had something special.”

“We could.”

You smile at her, or in her general direction. She’s taken your glasses off now, and all anything is is different shades of gold. You take this as your cue to move toward her again, to find a way to look at her without feeling that ache behind your eyes.

You never find one. No matter how close you get, you always feel like you’re staring at the sun.

“Just you,” you say, because you know you’re running out of time. “Then it’s cold turkey, promise.”

“Cold turkey?” It’s worse when she’s smiling, you think. When you can see the shift in her face, from some blurred concentration to the laughter you won’t see again after tonight.

You won’t see her again after tonight.

“Um, I’ll quit, is what I’m saying. Mm, cold turkey just means, mm… That’s it. No exceptions.”

“Good luck,” she says.

Neither of you speak until noon.

Last night’s golds are more saturated now, oranges that you don't recognize, and it only hurts to see her when you get close enough to remember who she is.

You almost miss it.

“Hey, Delphine,” you say, because you know that you only have so many minutes of her name left.

“Mm, bonjour, Cosima. Cold turkey begins.”

You don’t tell her that this is the wrong use. “Yeah.”

She slides last night’s dress over her shoulders, then taps the bridge of her nose. “Can you see?”

You can’t. You don’t want to. “Mhm.”

“Good luck with the boys,” she says. “They are not so horrible. Very different, but not so bad.” She is smiling again, but the movement is different somehow, less fluid than you remember.

“Thanks,” you say anyway. “Good luck with Americans.”

“Mm. Thank you.”

She kisses you just long enough that you forget to feel anything when she leaves.

Her luck takes you nowhere.

You are back to the girls in three weeks.

She catches your eye from over the head of a red-haired girl, who seems to be talking quite passionately about nothing in particular. Delphine excuses herself.

“This is cold turkey?” she asks you. (She is already linking her hands with yours.)

“Mhm. Eighteen days. Didn’t suit me.”

“Quelle tristesse.”

“Mm, I know. It’s an absolute tragedy.”

Her smile is like the first, this time, and it hurts even more. “I especially am heartbroken.”

“I’m sure,” you say. You can’t stop yourself from asking. “Anyone else?”

She shrugs. “Some. No one… like you.”

“Like me?”

“You thought we had something,” she says, leaning into you with a kind of desperation you couldn't see in her. “I think I agree.”

“You think?”

“Mm. Mhm. I do.”

"Mmm. Okay."

You don't think you've been there for ten minutes before Delphine asks whether your place is all right.

She is more domestic than you anticipated.

Following three more faux-coincidences, Delphine has essentially made herself at home with you.

You've never been one for settling down, especially not now, with the world so  _full_ , but Delphine makes it seem almost desirable.

This is something worth writing home about, you tell her. (She laughs. She knows that your letters are packed with minuscule lies.)

> Regrettably, it seems I'm still caught up in my old ways, but I have met a girl who seems set to cure me of it.
> 
> I think you'll be made happy by this as well: I am using my French again. This girl is from Paris, so she is much better than me, but you know... I'm using it!
> 
> I don't know when I will get a chance to write you next. Who knows! Maybe I'll have news worth returning home for

When the coughing starts, you do not call a doctor. The burning in your lungs is different from the ache you used to get when you looked at her. It’s less.

You think it is what your mother warned you about.

You think this is what you call karma.

Delphine begs you to see someone.

You don’t.

You would have to write home, then. You would have to go home. You would leave Delphine. Your parents would cry. And then you would be dead.

You are not afraid of the last part.

You are not afraid that your last breath will be as horrible as your worst are now (shaky, desperate, feeding into lungs that can’t be your own).

Both of you have taken enough biology courses to know that it will not end well. You have taken enough biology courses to know that it will end horribly, and it will end soon. You do not bother to pretend otherwise.

Delphine does.

"Fucking wonderful time to die," you say. You’re more casual about it than either of you realized, and Delphine’s eyes are wide.

Then, she smiles, different from anything you recognize. “It’s too bad neither of us are dying.”

"Delphine…"

"If one of us were dying," she says, almost laughing, "we would have seen a doctor."

Most days, Delphine doesn’t talk about it.

Most days, Delphine doesn’t talk about anything.

She asks you to join her at parties, whatever party she’s heard of. You join her every time.

You disappear every ten minutes. Delphine is the only one who notices.

Neither of you see the blood which has somehow found its way to your dress until the next afternoon. Every time after this, you will ask Delphine to be more careful with her lipstick.

Secretly,you think she may be killing you.

You’ve smoked more, since meeting her, smoked more of everything, and for a second, it feels  _right_.

The next second, of course, you are reminded.

Whoever you’re talking with smirks. “First time or something?” they ask.

You nod, because some part of you still thinks it’s better to start living at twenty-six than to stop.

This part is the first to go.

You have stopped apologizing to Delphine. She has stopped pretending that nothing is wrong.

"I’ve been doing some reading," she says. "They do not make death sound so bad."

"Yeah?"

"Mhm."

"When I was back home, I was doing some reading, too."

"Mm?"

"I gotta say, it’s a wonder this didn’t happen sooner. The girls always have this thing. They can never just… be happy."

"You’re saying this was fate?"

"I’m saying my mother needs to know when I die."

"Cosima…"

"Don’t. Just… help me write a letter. You’re sending it."

"You don’t have to do this."

"Come on. En français? I need her to know I didn’t lose my culture in my final days."

"Of course not," she says, and, for once, the red on your lips really is because of her.

**Author's Note:**

> i honestly just had to release this fic into the wild at this point. be free, my friend. hopefully your weight off my back will allow me to finish the mermaid au.


End file.
